


The Watchtower Crumbles

by Lookingkindofdumb



Series: A:TLA Gender Bender [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang really wants to go penguin sledding, Because that tag needs to be on every fic with Zuko in, Fem:Zuko, Gen, Gender bend au, Katara is vindicated, Sokka was not prepared for this, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko is campaigning for animal rights, Zuko really does not want to go penguin sledding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23032033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lookingkindofdumb/pseuds/Lookingkindofdumb
Summary: Where Zuko is female. This is her first meeting with the Avatar. That is it. That is the summary.Or, Zuko is female, this doesn't really change anything except that Aang decides if he ever needed someone on his team in a shouting competition he would pick her first.
Series: A:TLA Gender Bender [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655296
Comments: 30
Kudos: 626





	The Watchtower Crumbles

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, very random oneshot that might be part of a oneshot series where Zuko is female.
> 
> Brought about because of a hilarious picture on pinterest of Aang asking a female Zuko to go penguin sledding.
> 
> https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/489907265713050773/
> 
> Because it is actually canon (comics) that Zuko cannot say no to cow-puppy eyes. See when Sokka is asking (pleading) for a swordbending match.

She takes her helmet off (her peripheral vision is already reduced by the damn burn scar, she hates making it worse by wearing the helmet even if it does protect her head) and shoves it into one of her soldier's chest. He fumbles the helmet before gripping it in one hand.

"Wait, you're a girl?!" The water tribe boy who dashed at them with commendable - if stupid - bravery asks still on the ground, mouth agape eyes wide.

It's times like these when Zuko misses the Fire Nation most. She would be an anathema if she _didn't_ fight, in the Fire Nation. Unfortunately the Earth and Water tribes seem to be painfully backward. She can see why her father wishes to establish Fire Nation control over the world if the goal is to snuff out such senseless debilitating societal norms.

"You just caught me off guard." The boy huffs with impressive bravado. Zuko catches the teenage water tribe girl rolling her eyes.

"I am the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation: I command you to bring me all your elderly!" She roars, voice long used to shouting commands. She may not have ever ordered armies on land but she has lived on a ship for more than two years now: sometimes you have to fight to be heard over the sounds of the engine.

The small group of people huddled in front of her don't move. Zuko clenches her fists, itching for the soothing warmth of flame.

"Search every tent. Bring me their elders." She orders her crew. They may be a motley bunch not worthy of wearing the uniform of the Fire Nation Navy but they, at least, do what she orders.

Zuko searches each face brought to her for inspection but does not find what she is looking for.

"Where is the Avatar?" She hisses, finally igniting twin daggers of flame in her hands. It's times like these when she really wishes she could be more like Mai and store throwing knives in her sleeves without nearly chopping herself to bits every time she moves. Zuko is a decent shot at throwing the knives but never got the hang of storing them in her clothing.

Just as she is about to start threatening to burn down a tent - better a home than a person, homes could be rebuilt - one of her soldiers returns holding the arm of a boy dressed in orange and yellow.

She stares at the blue arrow tattooed on his forehead, then at his attire - completely unsuitable for the surroundings. Zuko is a Fire Bender and can regulate her temperature (thank you Aunt) but even she is chilled in the poles. 

Zuko possesses a wealth of information about the air nomads - her search started in libraries. She needed to know her enemy before pitting herself against him and besides, when she was first banished she had no idea where to even start searching.

Those tattoos mean the boy is a master air bender despite his youth. She'd think it a trick or fashion statement but the boy isn't shivering in the ice. He's wearing lighter fabric than she and _he isn't shivering._

"Air Bender." Zuko addresses him. "How have you escaped the Fire Nation?" She asks, maybe he knows where the Avatar is, the coward who has been hiding for a hundred years. She is ready to face an elderly man, ready to fight the Avatar.

"I, uh, took a nap?" The boy says, scratching the back of his head and offering a big grin. Zuko is too used to Ty Lee's wide eyes and smiles that ensnare the unwary like a scorpion-bee dropped in honey, to be taken in by the faux innocence.

This isn't the first Air Bender Zuko has encountered on her journey (well, suspected Air Bender, she never got conclusive proof - she never wanted conclusive proof because then she would be honour bound to _do something_ ) but this is the first one who practices so openly. He is wearing traditional robes, has bright blue tattoos. He isn't trying to hide at all. Zuko stares at him, if it wasn't for the light that split the sky...No; she'd seen orange in the spyglass...

" _You're_ the Avatar." She says, waiting for someone to laugh at her, to say: impossible. No one does, the boy looks like she slapped him but that isn't a denial.

"You're just a _kid_." She says. In all her daydreams of finding the Avatar, he had always been an old man, an Air Bender too lost to the Air Bender philosophy of evading direct conflict to dig his heels in and fight. An Avatar who chose to hide for a hundred years and live in obscurity. Not this...child.

"Well, _you're_ just a teenager." He points out reasonably. Zuko waits for the trap but...nothing happens.

"Come with me." She orders. He grins, almost sheepishly and declines so Zuko ups the ante "Come with me or I'll burn down the village." Zuko promises channelling her inner Azula after she catches his glance back to the huddled tribe. 

It's a small tribe, really, really small. Must be one of the fringe groups, there are quite a few Southern Water _Tribes_ after all but she didn't expect one such tribe to be so...bare. Are there even enough men and women to hunt? Fish? Make nets, cure hides...it's just the elderly and the young here. She'd heard that the dangerous Southern water benders had been dealt with (tactics of war: get rid of enemy weapons or resources) but. She hadn't expected that to extend to the non-benders. She's not saying that non-benders aren't just as dangerous as benders but her grandfather and father were of the opinion that benders were better. They would have focussed on the benders only. So why? This tribe just isn't _sustainable_. She glances at the tents. Maybe it's a camp for the hunters; it doesn't look like a permanent residence.

"I'll go with you, on one condition." The boy says, staring at her hard. Zuko braces herself, Azula always made deals with conditions and they were almost always ended up smacking Zuko in the face after she thought she was in the clear. Azula wasn't terrifying because of her blue fire, that just added to the overall effect.

"Will you go penguin sledding with me?" He asks and once again Zuko is reminded of Ty Lee. Most of the time Ty Lee actually was innocent, Zuko remembers, it's only when the boy was doing something for Azula that things took a sour edge.

"Are you joking?" Zuko snaps, waiting for the punch line. Usually in jokes _she_ is the punch line and for all her Aunt's teachings Zuko never sees it coming.

"No?"

"And you promise to come to my ship after we go... _penguin sledding_?" She checks. Someone behind her snorts and Zuko very carefully does not look behind her to catch the traitorous crew member who is finding this _amusing_.

Wait, is penguin sledding a euphemism for something? She eyes the Avatar with new wariness. She's gone along with enough of Azula's _games_ to be wary of a trap.

"I promise." The Avatar nods his head.

"Aang!" The water tribe teenager protests.

"Don't worry Katara, you can come too!" The Avatar says, grin back on his face.

This is how Zuko finds herself penguin sledding with The Avatar, watched by her crew and the two water tribe teenagers.

#

"That was fun!" The Avatar exclaims, bouncing in place and looking like he is a hairs breadth from grabbing a poor penguin-otter and using them as a sled. She'd...shouted a bit when she realised what exactly Penguin Sledding was. The Avatar said it didn't hurt them but she couldn't see how. Plus, the penguin-otters didn't like it which was reason enough not to _use them as sleds._

He'd gone quiet for a few moments after she'd said her piece. It wasn't a quiet Zuko liked but he'd agreed not to 'penguin sled' and so they had used Crewman Keno's spare tunic instead to slide down near perpendicular slopes at dizzying top speed.

(Zuko wasn't asking why Crewman Keno carried round a spare tunic or why it smelt like blasting jelly and vaguely rotten fish guts.)

"No." She pre-empts, gripping hold of the back of his orange top-shirt-part-cape-thing. "No more." 

"Aw." The Avatar, a literal child, whines.

"We've already gone for _three_ rides." Zuko says, feeling like there is something very wrong about this scene. This is not the way capturing the Avatar was supposed to go.

"And?" The Avatar asks, like three hair-bending, neck-braking snow slides isn't three rides too much.

"You promised you would come to my ship after sledding." She reminds him, gripping his cape thing even tighter. She can see why pygmy-puma mothers carry their misbehaving young by the scruff of their necks all the time. She needs some rope, if the boy gets any bouncier then he'll just float away on the next breeze.

"Oh. Yeah." The boy's face falls. Zuko's stomach does the twisting thing it used to do every time Azula burned the turtle-ducks in front of her just to see her cry. Maybe the fish she had for breakfast disagreed with her.

"Before we do that, though, could we have a snow fight?" The Avatar asks looking so very hopeful.

"A snow fight?" No, she will not blast the kids head with fire no matter how aggravating he is.

"Yeah, before I become a real prisoner!" 

Zuko is used to guilt trips. Azula is the king of emotional manipulation. Besides, the servants in the palace quickly cottoned onto the fact that the sure way to get Zuko to obey them was to tug at the strings of guilt. But. Just because she knows when she is being manipulated doesn't stop it from working.

She bitterly wishes it did. Life would be much more convenient.

"What is a 'snow fight'?" She asks warily.

"You've never had a snow fight?" The water tribe boy sounds baffled. Too late Zuko realises the other teenagers (brother and sister?) have approached to within earshot.

"Fire Nation." Zuko says dryly. "It doesn't snow there." She points out.

"No snow? How do you hunt tiger-seals without snow?" The teenager with the funny tail of hair says, sounding aghast.

"We don't." Zuko says, staring.

"Sokka, the Fire Nation hunts different animals, you know gran-gran's taught us about other places." The girl points out, sounding far too long suffering for anyone in this situation apart from Zuko. "Well, they probably hunt animals when they get bored of hunting down defenceless water tribe members." The girl hisses, glaring daggers at Zuko and her crew.

"Nah, humans don't taste right, too much moral indignation not enough juicy meat. I'll stick to animals, thanks." One of Zuko's more outspoken crew members says.

The girl draws back as though the words were a blow not a jest. The snow of a near-by peak trembles.

"Officer Chen, can you not antagonise the natives?" Zuko asks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Apologies, sir." Chen snaps to attention then completely undoes all professionalism by removing her face plate. Chen peers at the water tribe duo with interest. 

Zuko would send Chen back to the ship, perhaps for reinforcements, but she is distracted when the Avatar decides to go haring off after a puffin-goose with her hand still attached to his cape-thing.

For the record: Puffin-Geese are not nearly fascinating enough to justify being dragged across the snow.

(And why do they try to _eat_ her _shin guards_?!)

#

This was not how Sokka expected his day to go.

He hadn't been expecting much considering Katara was with him on the fishing expedition (why did magic water always make him wet?!) but finding a kid trapped in ice, his sister and said kid setting off Fire Nation traps and then being beat up by a Fire Nation Princess...Sokka doesn't think he could have imagined it if he tried.

Finding out Aang was the Avatar? Sokka will believe it when he sees it. (Although, the ice berg thing, that was a compelling point. But his Bison survived in the ice, so maybe the kid was just a human version of a Bison.)

Watching Aang drag the princess into penguin sledding had been hilarious because of her _face_. Surreal but funny.

"So, is it true that during the winter the sun disappears for half a year here?" The Fire Nation guy who disdains eating humans asks (...Chan? Chen maybe) and well, Sokka was not expecting that.

"Wait; are you all girls under the armour?" Sokka blurts out, staring at every soldier wide eyed.

"No." Is the helpful answer and he gets a flat look. "So...no sun?" 

"Nah, we get light from sun’s rays even if we can't see the actual sun, it isn't wholly dark. But in the middle of winter the sun disappears for about two and half months." Sokka explains like this isn't basic survival knowledge. But then the Fire Nation has a different sort of winter, no snow and sun every day, all year round.

"No sun for three months? No wonder people go mad." Another soldier shivers and this one, this one is a guy. Okay, Sokka feels mildly more at ease with the world.

"Yeah, couldn't live without Agni." Chen agrees glancing at the sky like the sun might just disappear.

"Water tribes seem to manage just fine." Katara sniffs.

"Give me volcanoes any day." One soldier mutters, kicking at the snow with a distinctly unimpressed air.

"Volcanoes...don't they explode and breathe fire?!" Sokka exclaims, staring at the guy.

"Some yeah," The guy agrees with a wistful sigh. "I miss it." 

"Well, I knew the Fire Nation was crazy." Sokka shrugs.

"You guys live on the _ice_." The guy points out the obvious.

"Yeah?" Sokka asks, wondering what point the guy is trying to get at.

"Hey, Tenzin, bet on the kid dragging the princess into a snow game?" Chen nudges the shoulder of the morose guy.

"Latrine duty." Tenzin says immediately.

"I'm putting down for laundry." Chen says, looking over to where the princess is being treated to Aang's butterfly attention span.

"Three minutes." Tenzin says. 

"Hah, one and bet she blows her top before the game ends and drags him to the ship."

Its closer to four minutes later before the Princess seems to lose patience, shouts her head off then grabs Aang by the part cape of his shirt and attempts to drag him back to her ship.

"Wow, the princess must be in a really good mood." Chen whistles, trudging after them. Sokka, feeling his guts twist uncomfortably, follows. Katara's mouth is set in a thin line and he knows what that means.

"Or she's feeling guilty." Tenzin mutters.

" _Tenzin_." Chen warns.

"What? No one mentioned anything about involving kids. The Avatar's supposed to be an old man." Tenzin says, very, very quietly.

"We've been involving kids for years, Tenzin. The princess was his age when she got her orders." Chen says, smile gone and face so serious that Sokka actually believes she is a hardened warrior. (A woman as a warrior? So weird.)

Tenzin scowls before replacing his face plate and turning grimly to walk back to the ship. The ship that crashed into _Sokka's watchtower_. Okay, all feelings of camaraderie gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah...
> 
> So, I cannot accept that Aang is the very last airbender, this does not compute. Some Airbenders were not in the temples, they were wandering, visiting friends ect when Sozin's armies struck. 
> 
> The reason we didn't see of any airbenders who managed to survive in the cartoon? Because they were in hiding and Aang was not subtle (flying bison banner of location). After the war was over and a few years into the peace they might let themselves be known to Aang but it was just too risky before.
> 
> Zuko has no comments about any _suspected_ Airbenders and she reminds any concerned fire nation citizens that the war wiped out every Airbender so it was probably just a...loud gasp or something.
> 
> (If she shouts loud enough then any potential suspected Airbenders know to hide their tracks before she sees anything incriminating.)


End file.
